On Campus

Rap Music, Particle Physics Collide at Florida Tech Concert

The rapper Consensus, seen here at the Large Hadron Collider, will perform a free concert at 8 p.m. Nov. 9 on the Florida Tech Panthereum.

British Artist Consensus
to Hold Free Show Nov. 9

MELBOURNE, FLA. — A British hip-hop artist whose 2017 album is all about particle physics will perform a free concert at the Florida Tech Panthereum starting at 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 9.

Antoine Gittens-Jackson, a South London-based songwriter, rapper, producer and poet known as Consensus, released the album ConCERNed last year. CERN is the European Organization for Nuclear Research, which operates the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland.

He will be on the Space Coast for much of the week, visiting the Kennedy Space Center and touring Florida Tech, where he will meet with physicist Marcus Hohlmann and his research group that works on the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) at CERN.

Gittens-Jackson’s visit is sponsored by Florida Tech’s Department of Aerospace, Physics and Space Sciences and the College of Engineering and Science.

Gittens-Jackson, who has an undergraduate degree in in aerospace engineering, took multiple visits to CERN over a two-year period and worked closely with British particle physicist Sudan Paramesvaran, who served as his scientific adviser, as he developed ConCERNed. Paramesvaran works on the CMS experiment at CERN, which also involves faculty and students at Florida Tech.

Songs on the album include “Higgs,” named for the Higgs boson, and “Dark Matter.”

The musician told The Financial Times in an article last week that he views ConCERNed as a way to open up science to “kids who aren’t necessarily interested in science.”

“If you listen to (music such as) grime, rap or trap all day, then go to school and the teachers aren’t speaking your language, you’re never going to become a physicist,” he told the newspaper.

Gittens-Jackson has a unique tour schedule in the U.S. Before coming to Florida Tech, he will perform at the Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois. He will head to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore after his Melbourne concert.